NLP 101: Experience Has A Structure

Neuro-Linguistic Programming believes that experience has a structure, and that structure is composed out of 5 senses: visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory or gustatory. And because every experience is composed out of these same building blocks, so is every state, habit, skill or resource.

If someone else is able to develop a skill, a belief, a particular state of mind, you can also learn to do the same if you could discover how she composes those building blocks in her mind and body to achieve the result, and do the same in yours. This is the process of modeling I described in What is NLP? Part 2.

To put it simply:

If someone can learn to do something, so can you.

From Natural Talent to Learnable Skill

Until the 1950s, people thought skiing was a matter of talent, not skill. You either got it, or you didn’t.

But something happened. According to professor Edward T. Hall, black and white films were made of successful skiers. Researchers then studied the frames and broke down their movements into the smallest possible units of behaviour.

When beginners were taught these movements, their results improved dramatically. Because the skill of skiing had a structure, the only question was how to break down that structure into methods that could be taught to others and produce results.

How Did This Belief Change Me?

The belief that experience has a structure has given NLPers all over the world the guts and the curiosity to find how just how is it that exceptional people create exceptional results, to create techniques and models from the answers they found and use them to create accelerated results.

In How NLP Changed My Life I shared that I was a pretty insensitive person who was never very good with words. How did someone like me change and rise to the ranks of a senior Life Coach within a year, do multiple presentations that were well-received, and help people make changes in their own lives, emotionally, mentally and spiritually?

If the founders of NLP had not believed that experience had a structure, they would not have bothered to deduce the structure of magic behind what top therapists of their times did. And the wonderful NLP Meta and Milton model language patterns would never have been created, and I would never have been able to use those patterns to create the changes I did within myself and my ability to influence.

How Can You Use This?

The belief that if someone can learn to do something, so can you, which is supported by the belief that experience has a structure, or like some NLPers like to say; that success leaves clues, is a powerful belief to adopt for personal growth.

Compared to if you believed that just because someone can learn to do something, it doesn’t mean that you can, and experience does not have a structure because success does not leave clues, you wouldn’t be able to model anyone and find shortcuts to your own success.

If experience has a structure, and you can learn to do anything that someone else can do because success leaves clues, what would be different for you?

A battery of controlled studies in the 80s showed NLP to be ineffective, especially for the purpose of influence. There are many interventions that do work according to controlled studies, but NLP isn’t one of them. Since then the only serious studies regarding NLP have been by social psychology streams who study pseudoscientific followings. They examine NLP groups (among other new age belief fields) from the perspective of how they sell pseudoscience and misconceptions about the mind. Such tricks involve repeating the mantra – “try it for yourself” and “you have nothing to lose”. What’s the NLP response to that fact?

If I were defending NLP, that’d be the first question I’d ask. But luckily I’m not, and I wouldn’t. And because I’m Alvin, I can’t tell you the NLP response, but I can tell you the Alvin response.

Not all of NLP works all the time. There’s stuff that I’ve found very useful and stuff that I found doesn’t work for me. I’ve never used the Parts Integration technique much, but I have used it to help people find solutions.

And while some didn’t find much use in the Meta and Milton models, I have used them to get fine results.

A fine caveat here: some people will sell you the idea that because NLP can achieve some fast results, that mastering the use of them should also be fast. But it took me years to use the Meta and Milton model with skill – these skills are like any other, they take time to master.

So who would I be trying to trick to do what if I say ‘try it for yourself’ and ‘you have nothing to lose’, and if it doesn’t work for you, find something else that does?

Hunt (2003) puts NLP in the same category as Scientology. NLP is mentioned more in cultic studies research nowadays as a cult or new age religion. Social psychologists call NLP a granfalloon (Devilly 2005) that sells pseudoscience using word of mouth testimonials alone (that contradict empirical studies). Sharpley (1997), Lilienfeld (2003) and so on all show that NLP failed controled studies, and the theories have been labeled as pseudoscience. NLP is characterized by naivety at best and at worst fraudulence. I think thats enough research. Basically now, the only interesting thing about NLP is how people get stuck into forking out for books courses and seminars on such a pseudoscientific new age religion.

Well there are quite a few well validated CBT methods. They tend to get presented in a way that gives an accurate idea of their efficacy so you know what to expect.

Understanding social psychology also helps sift the gold from the dross. It also helps to look into the history of other dodgy methods such as Dianetics to help you see the kind of scams the pseudoscientists are trying to pull even now. Thought field therapy and other such new age pseudosciences are good to learn about – just so as to get to know some other cowpats to avoid.

Basically just stay reasonable and avoid anything that looks like a new age religion.

Unfortunately a lot of NLP deserves another acronym (BS), but there is gold amongst the dross.

CBT may be useful for understanding the mechanisms of a particular pathology (not any other aspect including etiology), but the evidence demonstrates that it is not an efficacious therapy (and that merely understanding a problem does not provide any measurable benefit).

Alvin, I like your blog and your attitude. I think we may be soul mates

I dont believe NLP is a scam.. I think it is valid and useful. We know that pavlos studies are valid.. stimulus response, I think Bandler developed a way of creating stimulus response circuits in humans that create useful outcomes. For example the fast phobia cure.. have controlled studies ever been done with this on genuine phobics? The idea that the mind can repattern old stimulus response circuits for new ones is radically different to currently accepted thought, but it actually works.. we learn quickly .. do you know how many people developed fears of going into the water from the film Jaws? this is classic stimulus response conditioning.. his NLP methodology was to use the presuppotion that the mind learns things quickly.. and use it to learn something new,.. he developed this to a fine art, everything he did was to elicit strong feelings and link them to other things.. whether it was a feeling of disgust or anger.. these strong resources could be used to propel humans in a more useful direction… I think Bandlers work is bordering on Genious… study it, try it for yourself

You were quite right, Marty. It isn’t NLP which is a scam but “Headley”, a well-known sockpuppet/sockpuppet master who was thrown off Wikipedia a whilse back along with more than 12 other sockpuppets.

The fact is that almost all of the NLP-critical sockpuppet use the same basic list of references to support their claims. What they don’t say is that:

(a) They have never actually read the material they are quoting. Thus, for example, “Headley” claims that Sharpley reviewed a number of “controlled studies”, though what Sharpley actually said was that “A series of controlled studies … is called for.” (Sharpley, 1984, page 247).

(b) most of the so-called scientific evidence consists of the experiments that Sharpley reviewed. But both Sharpley and most of the experimenters had very little accurate knowledge of NLP. So little, in fact, that they were all investigating a concept that Bandler and Grinder had dropped in the late 1970s in favour of a more flexible version.

I’m glad to see that Headley acknowledges that “Understanding social psychology also helps sift the gold from the dross. It also helps to look into the history of other dodgy methods such as Dianetics to help you see the kind of scams the pseudoscientists are trying to pull even now.”

Because I took my first degree in social psychology quite a few years ago, but having worked in personnel and training for much of my career I have done my best to keep myself up-to-date on the subject.

From that perspective I can confirm that Headley’s nonsensical claims are indeed dross and show a complete ignorance of the subjects he posts about (Sharpley, Devilly, Dianetics, Scientology, NLP, social psychology, etc., etc.)

For example, Headley cites Dr. Grant Devilly as one of his experts against NLP, yet in an e-mail discussion with me earlier in 2009, Dr. Devilly assured me that he had read up extensively on Scientology, and yet knew of NO SIMILARITIES between Scientology and NLP!

The claim that Stephen Hunt has substantiated the claim is also valueless.

In Hunt’s book the section on Neur-Linguistic Programming is almost a word for word copy of a similar piece by another author (David Barrett). Barrett makes no claim to any link between NLP and Scientology, and since Hunt found it necessary to copy so much of Barrett’s piece we have little reason to suppose that he knows anything about NLP other than what he read in Barrett’s book (see http://www.bradburyac.mistral.co.uk/hunt.html to see a word-by-word comparison of what both men wrote).

Indeed, the whole basis of Headley’s claim is one phrase in Hunt’s book: “An alternative to Scientology is the Neuro Linguistic Programme (NLP) …”

Even in these few words there are at least three errors and one major ambiguity:

Ambiguity: What does Hunt mean by “an alternative”? Flying to America is *an alternative* to rowing across the Atlantic in a dinghy, but I hardly think they were in any meaninful sense two versions of the same thing unless you chunk up to some high level of vagueness as “means of transport” or “ways of getting to America”.

Error 1: If we’re talking about Neuro-Linguistic Programming there is no such thing as “the” Neuro Linguistic Programme

Error 2: Given the same context there is no such thing as the “Neuro Linguistic *Programme*. Neuro-Linguistic Programming is a process, NOT a thing.

Error 3: Nor is there any such thing as “Neuro Linguistic” anything. There is a field of study, related to psycholinguistics, called “neurolinguistics”, and there is “Neuro-Linguistic Programming”, created by Bandler and Grinder. But “Neuro Linguistic Programme”? ‘Fraid not. That’s the kind of error someone is only likely to make if they have no real knowledge of NLP – someone such as Dr. Hunt seems to be.

In short, “Headley”, under a variety of names, has no real knowledge of NLP. He simply trolls around the web posting inaccurate information based on information he has cut and pasted from sources whose contents he seems to have only minimal understanding, if any.

The name is a wild claim in itself. The stuff they are promising is total nonsense. I think its disgraceful how NLPers behave. With scientologists, its ok for them to believe. However, those in charge should be subject to ridicule and scrutiny

With NLP, it is decentralized. So those at the “top” are actually the NLP certified practitioners. They are not just believers, they are the priests. They should be scrutinized and ridiculed also. There is no evidence for any of the claims made. Neurolinguistic programming is a scam.